More thoughts (and data) on the future of the Astrodome, Reliant Arena

You may recall that I commented in this space a few weeks ago about the condition of the Astrodome after reporters were allowed access to the building for the first time in about two years.

Frankly, I still feel guilty every time I drive along the South Loop and see the Dome. Given our tendency to personify inanimate objects, I can just imagine it crying out, “Why have you forgotten me? Either fix me or put me out of my misery.”

Clearly, I watched too many cartoons as a kid and beyond. End of digression.

The Reliant Astrodome is seen on Wednesday. It remains to be seen what will ultimately happen here. (Mayra Beltran/Chronicle)

A few leftover notes and observations:

With all the talk about the Astrodome, it appears that the top priority of the consultants, and arguably for the other parties, could well be construction of a new 10,000-seat arena to replace Reliant Arena, which, I regret to say, is pretty much a dump. The last time I spent any significant time in the building was for the 2008 USA Gymnastics men’s national championships, I’ve covered that event for the last 12 years, and Reliant Arena easily was the most downscale venue in which it has been held. It is not a functional building for the future, I fear.

As you can see in the consultants’ report, the Reliant Park master plan would call for the new arena, parking garage and exhibit space to be built immediately to the east of the Astrodome, between the Dome and Fannin Street. That would concentrate all the park’s exhibit and event space at the north end of Reliant Park, freeing the bulk of the space south of the Dome and Reliant Stadium, toward the South Loop, for parking and/or future development.

A 2010 redevelopment plan for Reliant Park called for construction of a convention hotel on the property. Consultants now conclude that the hotel is a non-starter because projected occupancy rates would not justify the investment by developers, although that could change if the Dome is converted to a multi-use center as suggested. I’ve always wondered, frankly, how you could put a year-round hotel in the middle of a fenced-in complex and whether it would be worth it, as a guest, to stay there during a convention or to seek a site with more nearby amenities.

As an aside, check out page 157 of the consultants’ report and check out the chart on hotel rooms within walking distance of major convention centers around the country. Houston does not fare well in that regard.

As for the Astrodome itself, page 165 is the first page of the report devoted to the Dome’s future. You can check out renderings of the proposed plaza that would replace the Dome if it is demolished and proposals for events that could go into the Dome if it remains standing.

I was interested to see that the Astrodome could remain a sports venue, to a limited degree, if it remains standing and the county adopts the consultants’ suggestion to create a new event floor at street level, covering the current field level 25 to 30 feet below ground.

“We would like to aggressively pursue bringing back to Houston the state high school football championships,” said Edgardo Colon, chairman of the sports and convention board. “This would be ideal for an event like that. (Reliant Stadium) is probably too big.”

Actually, Colon isn’t exactly correct. The UIL division title games last year at Cowboys Stadium topped out at 43,369 for the Aledo-Manvel game, so the slimmed-down Dome likely could not host the 3A, 4A or 5A division games. About 15,500 seats, however, could be sufficient to host the 2A, A or six-man games, which were attended by 5,000 to 10,000 at Cowboys Stadium last year.

The Astrodome section also includes assorted blue sky proposals, such as halls of fame or theme parks or retail shopping or, no kidding, a UFO museum. That proposal, however, is currently a non-starter, according to consultants, because of lack of guaranteed private funding.

As for what happens if voters elect to demolish the Astrodome, Mike Morris’ story earlier this year about comparable demolition costs for other major stadiums drew a lot of attention because those costs were considerably less than the county’s 2010 estimate for Dome demolition.

The current report estimates the cost of demolition and construction of a plaza atop the Astrodome site at $63.9 million. That includes $31.5 million for demolition and $32.4 million for construction of a plaza atop the site that would include a replication on the plaza of the familiar Dome ceiling tile pattern. The demolition total, by the way, includes $4.5 million for asbestos removal alone and $5.6 million for enough dirt to fill a 30-foot hole in the ground once the building itself is removed.

Also, I presumed earlier that workers could leave the below-ground concrete shell of the Astrodome in place and just cover everything up. The current estimate, however, calls for workers to haul every bit of concrete and steel out of the hole and then dump in the fill dirt.

“What they have to do to get it right so you don’t get a lot of settlement is that you take everything out, even the concrete that is below grade,” said Reliant Park general manager Mark Miller. “That comes out, and they fill, compact, fill, compact, all the way up.”

One reason for hauling out all the concrete and steel, I am told, is that it facilitates construction should future generations wish to reuse the site of the one-time Eighth Wonder of the World.

Finally, I had a brief conversation Wednesday with Leroy Shafer, majordomo of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, about the Reliant Park plan. Note his concern about the proposed new arena. Here is our complete conversation:

“On the surface, we’re excited and pleased that it seems to be some resolution coming forward on the Astrodome. We’re probably more pleased that they are recognize and reaffirming the commitments of our lease agreement to keep the facilities out here in first-class shape and that they are addressing the arena. That is something that we are definitely concerned about. We built that thing in 1974 and gave it to Harris County lien-free. We’re certainly excited that they’re talking about a 3,000-plus car parking garage. The No. 1 need that every tenant has out here is more parking.

“We’re noncommittal at this point on the Astrodome. On the surface, both options are things that will probably work with us, but we want to take a closer look.

“We’ve seen preliminary plans (on the arena), and we have been consulted on that and there is enough space for us to do our horse show, which we do in the (current) arena. We do all our junior show auctions in the arena. We’re currently doing our poultry and alpaca shows in there. There’s definitely enough room to do all that. They say the devil is in the details, and we haven’t seen the details or the devil yet.

“You’ve got mixed emotions. We are by far the senior resident tenant out here. The Astros were here for 35 years, the Oilers were here for 28, we’re working on 47 years here, so, sure. We had 36 performance years in the Astrodome, and we set a lot of records there. Elvis performed there for us. George Strait closed it out in style with a record that will never be broken. You have those tugging at your heartstrings, but we’re also realists. It’s an old house, and it needs a lot of work, and even if you do a lot of work on it, you’re going to have a lot of maintenance. We have mixed emotions. But we’ll be pragmatic in this one. They are saying 300,000 square feet of exhibit space (if the Dome is converted to a multi-use center). Obviously if it’s there, we’re going to use it. That’s a big cost for that square footage.”